Key passage from today's notes on the US involvement in Somalia's civil war:
Instead of detaining or killing the warlords the US invited them to peace conferences etc…”encouraging the militias to form a government was like appointing the Mafia to run Manhattan.” John Fox commented: “At least I get to do what they taught me in the foreign service and have drinks with a room full of mass murderers.”
p. 235 The divide between farmers and nomad is illustrated. Somali nomadic clans kept camels and the famers raised sorghum and cattle.
p. 237 Regarding the famine and the challenge of overcoming US and European “donor fatigue” , the media sought out kids who were ‘thin enough’ (1992)
p. 238 1992 Famine named “Time of Swollen Feet” because peasants had to trek so far to reach feeding centers.
p. 238 DBT- Dead by Tomorrow, phrase coined by nurses working the feeding centers
p. 239 Vitamin A deficiency in the children caused night blindness initially …forming ulcers bursting with pus. If they survived, ‘their sight was scarred for life with blemishes like opals or moonstones on the pupils.’
p. 239 kwashiorkor- swollen belly effect produced by protein deficiency
p. 240 Heart-breaking details of children dying in the camps: the healthy children would run after you…”Among them were other children, who did not follow you except silently. Some stayed behind sitting and took no notice at all. It was to these last children that the cameramen were drawn.”
p. 241 “The only way to successfully convey the tragedy of famine was to depict the death of an individual.”
p. 244 Western intervention and aid comes too late to the region. “Whoever was going to die is already gone.” 300, 000 peasants, mostly small children died.
p. 245 UN Envoy Sahnoun : “If only we had intervened before November 1991, because of that delay we now pay the price.” He was sacked from his post after this.
p. 247 “The Somalis have more camels than any other nation on earth” They, along with war and love are the three subjects of poetry there.
p. 247 A Somali joke: What is the part of a camel that looks like a man? Answer: the part that pisses backwards.
p. 247 Nomads lived by age-old rules of hospitality to strangers
p. 248 General Imtiaz Shaheen appears on the scene in July 1992 to monitor cease-fire in Mogadishu…the opposite of what Aydiid and his Habre Gedir clansmen wanted.
p. 250 Then US arrives with UN Task Force OPERATION RESTORE HOPE. UN SECGEN’s “Battalions for peace.” Most people at the time in Somalia thought this was the beginning of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
p. 252 Marines coin a term for the warlords usurping of all aid they delivered A-W-A: Africa Wins Again. As soon as they give peasants aid and leave, the militias come and steal it.
p. 253 Instead of detaining or killing the warlords the US invited them to peace conferences etc…”encouraging the militias to form a government was like appointing the Mafia to run Manhattan.” John Fox commented: “At least I get to do what they taught me in the foreign service and have drinks with a room full of mass murderers.”
p. 254 Dan sells T-shirts to the marines that say: I restored hope in Somalia…his side business expands rapidly.
p. 256 Outside of the Marine controlled area around Mogadishu airfield was another world, the marines called “Skinnyland”
p. 257 Early 1993, marines used to swim on the beach but this stopped after a Russian pilot was killed by a shark.
p. 257 May 1993 UNOSOM takes command from the Marine Corps. Security Council Resolution 814 PKO troops must use Chapter 7 ROE. While General Cevik Bir was in charge he was only a figurehead. ADM Howe (retired, as a special envoy) and MAJGEN Montgomery. Montgomery was tactical commander of 1000 strong quick reaction force of 10th mountain division. He reported directly to GEN Hoar at US CENCOM in Tampa. He described Mogadishu as “Temple of Doom”
Check out the following link for a decade later discussion of the Somali civil war by these key players:
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